How does PLOS stack up against ArXiv?

I do think that the big journals are right to charge whatever they want because they are serving as an editorial board and PR for authors. The journals would be smart to tie cost of living of the authors to the cost of submission but if the authors don't want to pay anything, then there's always the free websites. Even storing a pdf in a Google drive and sharing the link counts as publication even though no one will see it...

I guess that this article builds a strong case for more securely monitoring and filtering outgoing net traffic. I could easily imagine blocking any out going connections to Google analytics would simply block this exfiltration. Time to look at ipchains again...

Awesome find. thanks!

which AI systems use Fortran for the GMMs?
TensorFlow uses C++ Eigen under the covers but did FB do something different?

I guess that this kinda puts to rest the idea of a artificial intelligence which is exponentially growing more intelligent.
Maybe it doesn't prohibit an AI which is more intelligent then it's creators but not one which is constantly growing....

I'll put money on an general AI also having a problem with latency. As more compute units are added to it, then the latency of the entire system will decrease unless there's compute redundancy and acceptable errors that creep into the outputs of the system.

Anyway, it's nice to know that there's upper limits on these kinds of things...

As a professional programmer, I am starting to see the fine edge of using a language with static typing versus dynamic typing.
Using Assembly vs C++ vs Python is less relevant as long as there is good tooling

Static typing does allow for much easier analysis and refactoring which is critical for building large complex software system.
Unit tests help but the tooling for them is inconsistent. (Code coverage metrics are important but not there yet...)
If Python does gain a form of static typing like TypeScript, then it probably will overtake Java for a lot of server-side apps.

Not sure about desktop/mobile apps (will the performance of Python ever come close enough to C++/Rust/D?) and JS/TS already own the web.

It reminds me of the intro sequence from an Ian Banks book (I can't remember which one) where a robot is on a ship which is attacked and is forced to eject different levels of consciousness each of which uses a different underlying technology. The photonic brain was the third most powerful level of consciousness it had. It eventually has to resort to it's "primitive" silicon brain because everything else has been corrupted. Maybe the book was by Vinge Verge. I can't remember...

Amen

In Soviet Russia, Natalie Portman pours hot grits on naked and petrified you. Lol

I'm a professional software programmer/engineer and I shutter to think what might happen if society can't understand how all of the complex computing machinery works. Or gives up because of the overwhelming complexity.

But seeing articles like this gives me hope. It means that we are successfully simplifying/explaining the really difficult bits and allowing more creativity to be layered on top of the complex parts. The author didn't need to know any details about how Twitter, the web, or tcp/ip works in order to build his search app. That's pretty cool.

It was sad that he gave up on coding a website because there were too many braces in JavaScript. I guess that with practice the braces fall away and the underlying logic shines through. If he wants to get really shook up, he should check out LISP, the ultimate symbolic language. The parentheses will either break him or make him experience true programming bliss.

They forgot to mention using a giant vacuum with a charcoal filter attached.

CL is usually fine except for the times that the people selling the item didn't actually acquire them legally.
I went to the sellers place to buy an expensive projector, bought the projector at the agreed on price (and it worked) and then I realized afterwards that there was NO furniture in the apartment and it looked like he had just arrived there right before me.

I didn't get ripped off but the ethics of the situation did bother me afterwards....

That is correct. In other cases (Donald Trump), the aggressive party just threatens to sue and hopes that will shut-up his critics or make the other party back down.

Never a dull moment in the US courtrooms....

I can't figure out why the defendant doesn't counter sue the plaintiff for harassment and emotional distress.
I imagine that he could easily get triple damages... however, collecting from such a person would be difficult.

name the attached dinghy Boaty McBoatface so the internet poll is at least honoured as a consolation prize....

I volunteered at the FRC at SJSU and the best team there had an auto aim and fire system for shooting into the top targets. Their bot almost always got the ball in.

I was really impressed with the teams there and the kids competitiveness and drive. All of them wanted to win and had put in a huge amount of time and effort into their robots.

It was a pretty awesome event and volunteering was a blast.